For You
by Moon Lovers Lover
Summary: When So sinks down, sword clattering to the ground beside him, Soo looks up at Yo's arrogantly shining dark eyes, his cruelly curved mouth, the venom his handsome face can't quite hide; and she silently vows to destroy him, destroy all of them, for So's sake. No matter what it takes.


"Bend the knee to me, or the girl dies," Yo says, and Soo curses him. She hates being used like this by scheming, dramatic men.

But she keeps up this farce, tears building in her eyes – and she knows that So will bend the knee for her, if for no-one else.

When So sinks down, sword clattering to the ground beside him, Soo looks up at Yo's arrogantly shining dark eyes, his cruelly curved mouth, the venom his handsome face can't quite hide; and she silently vows to destroy him, destroy all of them for So's sake. No matter what it takes.

/

Moo was being poisoned, and it wasn't by her; it was by the ninth prince using stupid, lovely Chae Ryung. Soo had known it the moment the girl met her eyes, the moment she stammered she hadn't done it. It doesn't really matter who the true culprit is, now that Yo had decided to pin her that way, anyway.

But she is a lady of the court, knowledgeable in herb lore, a student of Oh Soo Yeon. She would not be pinned this easily.

She isn't a poisoner. Yet.

/

The ninth prince is a careful man – anyone with as many enemies as he would have to be. But the tea that Chae Ryung makes for him and serves him; that is the one thing he would not suspect would kill him.

It is his last mistake.

/

Soo comforts Chae Ryung, the poor, silly girl crying hot, wet tears of sorrow into her shoulder – but as Soo pats her back, resting her chin on the girl's shoulder, she begins to smile.

/

Yo doesn't believe it was she that poisoned Won, but since he is accusing her of poisoning Moo, he calls Soo to the throne room and smirks at her. "Has our little poisoner claimed a second victim?" he asks, leaning forward in his throne, commanding her to come closer.

"Your Majesty would not believe me if I said it was not I," Soo says, but she calculates the slight tremble of her lip.

"So if I accuse you? Call you to trial? Torture you? Order your execution?" he asks.

"I would say you told me to do it, Your Majesty. To poison both of them." The steel in her voice is not feigned, and an appraising, almost impressed look rises in his eyes.

He smirks, shaking his head. "You are quite something, aren't you?"

She holds his gaze, her lips still trembling a little, and when his smirk widens she knows she has him.

/

Soo tells So that Yo will try to force them apart, to hurt them in many ways, but that he must remain strong. "I love you," she tells him, and she means it more than anything.

"I love you," he says back, and she knows she would do absolutely anything for those dark eyes of his to soften like that. The throne would suit him better than anyone, she realizes, and with all the power in the realm in his hands, the two of them could be truly happy, nothing forcing them apart ever again.

/

Yo asks for her more often in the weeks that pass, and he catches her supposedly unaware, supposedly frightening her. But every tremble of her lips, every gaze she is unable to keep up, every little gasp is calculated. He would have it no other way – he wants to corrupt her.

He's made no move for her yet, but when he does, she will make a move of her own.

/

The day he brings her into his bed is the day she allows him to glimpse the 'real' Soo; the cruel, ruthless Soo that he wants to see. He is rough, and she returns the favor.

When he falls dead asleep beside her, spent after the fifth time, she contemplates pushing a pillow down over his face until he stops breathing. But that would be counterproductive – and much, much too easy. She pours something from a vial in the pocket of her rumpled uniform on the floor.

A few drops onto the wicks of the burning candles, and she quickly leaves the room, holding her breath as she ties the front of her uniform.

/

She repeats this every night he takes her, and those nights come more and more often. She begs So to disbelieve those baseless rumors of her holding the king's 'favor', and of course he does. He loves her, and she loves him. 'This is for you,' she wants to tell him. 'I'm doing all this for you.'

/

Soo knows Yo will kill Eun, and somehow, she manages to convince him otherwise. When Wook is hanged for unspecified crimes against the crown, she stands behind Yo, watching his neck break. He wronged her, he abandoned her when she needed him most.

No-one thought Soo was the type to want to get even, but they were wrong, so wrong. She doesn't want revenge. She has a sense of justice, that is all.

/

Yo's sleep becomes more and more restless, his skin becomes paler, and his hands shake. So is sent away to build a fortress in far-away Seokyeong. Jung is sent to fight in Khitan.

Time passes, but Soo is patient. Yo sees his dead brothers when thunder shakes the world and lighting splits the sky, and Soo comforts him with soft insincere words. And when the king is finally asleep, she drips some of that liquid into the candles.

When he begins to pray more often, she adds it to the incense.

/

Two years have gone by, and both the fourth and fourteenth prince come back to her. She sees a change in So one night, and he finally tells her that he will become king. She wants to cheer, to rush around the room, to kiss him, to scream with joy – because really, if he can spend time with her and stay on that golden throne, life would be perfect.

Jung is different, too – he is quieter, more reserved, the boy becoming a man clad in armor, never far from his sword. He loves her, but he hides it better, unless that little sad smile appears in his lips, or that strange, intense expression appears with his brow furrowed. She cares for him, but she also sees his potential.

Soo's patient plan changes a little.

So can't be the one to kill the king, and neither can she.

/

Jung's dreams of snow in the mountains and blood on his sword keep him up and he wanders the corridors often at night.

When Soo stumbles from the king's chambers one night, holding her tunic closed with one hand, Yo's bruising grip marked on her wrists – Jung sees her, as she had meant it.

He stares at her, shock, horror, then rage on his face, and Soo makes tears appear in her eyes.

When she begins to weep in earnest, sinking into his arms, she tells him that he is the only one she can turn to, the only one she can confide in, the only one she can expose her dishonor to. Her trembling hands pull at him, and she feels a little pang of guilt as Jung is close to weeping, himself. But this is for So, for her king.

Jung's jaw tightens and he sinks to his knees in front of her, holding both of her hands in his. "I will do anything for you," he says, and he means it. If she tells him to go into the king's quarters and slaughter Yo in his sleep, he will do it. The poor boy, no, the poor _man_ , is devoted to her.

She asks him for three things. A death of one king, a pledge to another, and secrecy.

/

Soo is good at forging handwriting, she always has been, ever since she learned to write the hanja used in Goryeo.

Jung urges his kingly brother to come hunting with him.

/

The day before So marches on the capital, Yo falls from his horse and breaks his neck, leaving behind a single decree. His successor is none other than his fourth brother, Wang So.

A failed, half-hearted attempt at stopping So's ascension is enacted by the Queen Mother, but the old woman rails madly and ineffectually at her sons, before falling to the floor in a heap, her breathing stopping. Much later, poison is discovered in her tea, but not traced to anyone. She was a hated woman, with many enemies.

In the courtyard, Jung is the first to fall to one knee. "Hail the king!" he roars, drawing his sword. "Long may he live!"

Soo smiles at him over So's shoulder.

/

She smiles as she sits on the throne beside him, resting her head on his richly-robed shoulder. So is a king, and Soo is his queen, the way it was always meant to be.

But if Yeon Hwa continues trying to undermine her, to take So away from her, Soo will not let it stand.


End file.
